The bill has all-party support, but the Conservatives better commit to a date to get rid of the so-called tampon tax, a London MP says.

“There was a vote and it had all-party support but now we have to make them commit to making the change,” said London-Fanshawe NDP MP Irene Mathyssen.

“We’re going to be agitating until this happens.”

About $36 million from the federal tax on feminine hygiene products moves into government coffers every year.

“(The Tories) could make it a regulation change if they wanted to. It’s not a great woopty-do,” Mathyssen said.

Although the Conservatives have agreed the tax is unfair, and supported the NDP motion to get rid of it, the government has refused to commit to a timeline.

Reports say female Conservative MPs told their colleagues that if they didn’t support the bill the women wouldn’t show up for the vote.

The tax, considered discriminatory by many because only women have to pay it and it’s for something essential, has long been a target for the NDP. An online petition brought it to the forefront this spring.

The tax is a symbol of gender inequality, Mathyssen said.

“It’s the unfairness and the symbolic nature of this tax that’s touched a nerve with people,” she said. “It was that the concerns of women are not taken seriously and it became a symbol of the unequal decisions against women that are made every day.

“Child care, pay equity, all of that came together in the minds of these young women who started the petition and they were able to get 72,000 signatures. Women are very cool. We know what we want.”

Mathyssen takes issue with the Conservatives leaving the tax until the next budget.

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